Highly original and filmed with perfect assurance, River of Grass is one of the finest independent films of recent years.

Beyond its baby-sitting capabilities, Power Rangers doesn't morph into anything special. It hasn't a single fresh idea.

Using telephoto lenses to bring us close to the characters, Techine directs Wild Reeds with an impeccable sense of tempo, unhurried by narrative pressures. The actors seem to find exactly the right, internal rhythm for each scene the leisurely rhythm of people discovering each other and discovering themselves. This is certainly one of the year's best films. [30 June 1995, p.54]

The plot line quickly becomes incomprehensible, and the movie, directed in sleek music-video style by Michael Bay, comes to suggest a very long night on Fox-TV. [7 April 1995, p.56]

Once Were Warriors has more to say than the traditional TV-movie about spousal abuse. But some viewers will have to pay a price: This is a movie that requires strength and fortitude to sit through.

Pure, eye-popping pleasure.

The whole movie is something of a country-music clich, and it takes all of your imagination to be as enthusiastic about the characters' singing as they are. But The Thing Called Love is worth a look on the big screen. [16 July 1999]

It's not his most satisfying, full-bodied work, though it does provide many of the Woo pleasures. [18 Jun 1993]

Unforgiven is a high-caliber movie, a gripping and haunting work of art that should finally establish Eastwood as one of America’s best directors.

The movie is both wonderfully tender and wryly funny. [05 Feb 1992, p.31]

Sidewalk Stories manages to expose the modern-day realities of New York while at the same time recapturing the sentimentality and charm of the classic films of the silent era. [03 Nov 1989, p.47]

Audiences of all ages are bound to fall in love with this bubbly, thoroughly enchanting fish story.

In the final analysis, the best thing one can say for Lee is that he takes risks, like all true artists. For unlike most of today's film makers, he's not afraid to really challenge a movie audience to do some serious thinking.

A combination homage, living obituary and darkly moody piece of cinematic poetry.

This mercilessly intense movie is definitely not for the faint of heart. The atmosphere remains highly charged from beginning to end. There’s no letup, nary a suggestion of humor to break the tension. The viewer remains as stunned and repelled by the action as the movie’s well-bred narrator, an idealistic young volunteer (played effectively by Charlie Sheen) who naively expects to find himself by sharing the mud with the mostly poor and uneducated grunts.

The flight sequences in “Top Gun” may arouse aerial buffs. Still, this movie approaches its subject in such juvenile, superficial way that it’s clear the producers were merely in a hurry to cash in on Hollywood’s new wave of Rambo-style patriotism.

As irresistibly sweet as cotton candy. Even though the poor-girl-meets-rich-kid plot is older than the Hollywood hills, and this romantic comedy lacks the cheeky humour of Hughes' first outing, "Sixteen Candles," the film definitely warms the heart.

Out of Africa is still an absolute knockout. It provides such an enchanting glimpse of the paradise that Dinesen tragically lost that audiences will completely understand her other grand passion for Africa itself.

Each man winds up owing the other -- and the enormity of the sacrifices they make on one another's behalf are quite moving and have not been duplicated in the movies since.

Kids and parents alike are gonna dig this wonderful fantasy.

As for Bond’s glib wit, which has been running down lately, the screenwriters haven’t solved that problem. Some of his double entendres are older than Moore and one of them had to be used twice.

As he proved in the far funnier and livelier "Sixteen Candles," Hughes has a wonderful knack for communicating the feelings of teenagers, as well as an obvious rapport with his exceptional cast — who deserve top grades.

Clever as it is, Blood Simple is derivative and self-consciously stylized.

It's rather confusing. But in the context of this wildly imaginative movie, it's all, rather exciting, too.

Amadeus is about as close to perfection as movies get. [2002 Director's Cut]

All in all, Spielberg has come up with another rousing piece of entertainment.

It's not just the sexist humor that makes this tired businessman's fantasy so offensive. The real shocker is that the basic plot has been shamelessly lifted by screenwriters Charlie Peters and Larry Gelbart from "One Wild Moment," an equally skimpy French comedy by Claude Berri about two middle-aged pals who get into the exact same predicament in the South of France with their two nubile daughters. [17 Feb 1984, p.5]

Footloose turns out to be a sort of Boy Scout version of “Flashdance,” a carefully toned-down, overly respectable piece of schmaltz.